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The Age showcases Austin Health’s COVID-19 preparation

They visited our Screening Clinic, as well as ICU and ED to understand what plans are in place to care for COVID-19 patients

The Sunday Age ran a story highlighting the huge amount of work taking place at Austin Health to prepare and care for patients with coronavirus.

A photographer and journalist visited the Screening Clinic, as well as ICU and ED to understand what plans are in place to care for patients who present for screening or need to be admitted.

The result was some incredible photos of our staff caring for patients, and quotes from Dr Stephen Warrillow (Director, ICU) and A/Prof Jason Trubiano (Head of the COVID Team) acknowledging the work being done by their teams.

Stephen emphasised the crucial role nursing staff and others are playing in the response to the pandemic.

"Our frontline workers are our single greatest contributor to a patient's survival," he said.

“They come in every day, when their families are worried, and they just get on with the job. As a society we owe them a huge debt."

He also spoke about the skill of the staff in ICU.

“The ICU nurse is like the Swiss army knife of nursing, they can do anything,” he said.

Jason outlined the role of the Screening Clinic and the importance of keeping up the spirits of staff and patients alike.

“We are quite jovial,” he said.

“Our job is to reassure patients. We treat them with the best care we can and keep everybody’s spirits up.

“I’d be lying if I said there weren't times when we've all had a cry. It's very confronting seeing the numbers of cases rising in Australia and what is happening overseas. We are really hoping the things we're doing are going to prevent those scenes from happening here.”